Comparison of AC/DC converters and the principles of a new control strategy in small-scale wind turbine systems

Abstract

This paper provides a detailed comparison of AC/DC converters commonly used in small-scale wind turbine systems. The paper reviews the main AC/DC converter topologies first including rectifier, switch-mode rectifier and inverter, and provides their operational features and characteristics. Then based on the previous analytical and comparison studies, it describes a novel multi-mode control strategy, which aims to improve the performance of small-scale wind turbines over a wide operating speed range while considering trade-off between performance and control complexity in such converters.